First came a sudden metallic crash, and then—while the gate’s pulleys scraped along their rusted grooves—the south gate of the Tuileries finally slid open with a wrenching, tortured screech. Ever since the events of June twentieth, this heavy, cast-iron lattice gate had remained sealed for forty-five full days.

  Before long, at an officer’s command, a battalion of National Guards assigned to the palace’s southern entrance formed up in column, neatly lining both sides of the gate. They were preparing to render full military honors to welcome General André on his inspection.

  As Paris’s security commander, André had clearly neglected one duty: inspecting the defensive arrangements in and around the Tuileries. Moreover, once the inspection was complete, he was also to convey the National Assembly’s greetings to the King and Queen in his capacity as a deputy. Thus, when the presiding officer urged him for the third time, André set the date for the palace security inspection—on the last day before he left office: August fifth.

  At around nine o’clock that morning, André—wearing a handsome blue general’s uniform and white breeches—entered the glittering Bourbon palace at a slow pace, seated in an elegant open four-wheeled carriage and escorted by more than one hundred gendarmes.

  In his previous life, André had never had the chance to appreciate this historic royal residence. The Tuileries would later be burned during the civil war of 1871; so, taking advantage of the moment, he intended to sit back in the carriage and see it properly with his own eyes.

  Wherever the carriage passed, the Guards fell into formation to greet him. Because noise was forbidden inside the palace grounds, the soldiers—bright with excitement—waved their hats instead of cheering. Their enthusiastic welcome for the city’s defense commander did not come solely from André’s power, money, or present station.

  Most of that genuine joy came from a single fact: the moment General André took office, he ordered funds to be raised, and within five days the troops received the pay that had been withheld for as long as half a year.

  Inside the palace buildings, however, the King’s private guards in red uniform—the famous Swiss mercenaries—and a small number of richly dressed courtiers with swords at their sides, glared at him with open hostility, as though they wished to rush forward and tear the triumphant ringleader to pieces on the spot.

  If not for André, the King’s family would not have been captured at the Marne frontier and dragged back to Paris to endure humiliation in the Tuileries. And now, this same André—responsible for security across the entire city—had the audacity, in their telling, to organize, plot, and lead provincial rebels, to support the Jacobins and the sans-culottes in besieging the palace and seizing Paris.

  Of course, that was no more than royalist fantasy. If they truly acted with such recklessness, it would amount to declaring the death of the very people they claimed to protect: Their Majesties, the Dauphin, and the Princess. Tens of thousands of National Guards would immediately converge on the palace of their own accord; in fury, they would answer with cannon and musket volleys until nothing remained but rubble.

  In truth, the Tuileries’ exterior was rather ordinary. The long, north-facing palace did not hold André’s attention for long. The true splendor—the lavish décor and fine artworks—lay inside: the first floor was public space for ceremonies; the second held the King’s and Queen’s private apartments, including bedchambers and sitting rooms; above that were attic levels under the roof, and at the center of the main fa?ade rose a rounded dome.

  At that moment, André had no desire to tour the interior. Out of procedural courtesy, he submitted a request for an audience to the King’s attendant, then turned as if to leave.

  “General Franck!” A middle-aged attendant who had just come down the stairs hurried to stop him. Approaching, he said, “His Majesty has just instructed that he and Her Majesty the Queen will await your arrival in the great study!”

  “Oh?” André froze for an instant; then, in the next, he decided to take the risk and go in. He first handed his sidearm and sword to his aide for safekeeping, gave a few instructions to Captain Grisel, and then followed the attendant up to the second floor of the Tuileries and on to the door of the great study. Along the way, he noticed that the wallpaper on both sides was stamped with gleaming fleur-de-lis and the King’s initials.

  The attendant had barely knocked before speaking when Louis XVI’s unmistakable voice sounded from within.

  “Let the General come in.”

  André drew a deep breath, stepped past the attendant as the door was opened, and entered the great study.

  The first thing he saw was a large, solemn portrait of Louis XVI at his accession, hanging upon the wall. The curtains were golden silk, with hangings trimmed in costly red brocade; every chair and cushioned couch was covered with a rich velvet fabric patterned in green and white roses. The carpet, too, was of the finest quality—so soft underfoot it felt almost like spun sugar. After the events of June twentieth, the great study’s furnishings had been replaced.

  Louis XVI and Queen Marie stood together beside a piano. The young Dauphin, Louis-Charles, sat on the carpet playing with his elder sister, Princess Marie-Thérèse. Above their heads stood the King’s own writing desk, its surface cluttered with chess, backgammon, and draughts. Plainly, only a few minutes earlier, the family had been enjoying a quiet domestic moment.

  “Good day, Your Majesty; good day, Your Majesty the Queen.” Though André ordinarily held the Bourbon court in contempt and hostility, he remained, at least, a civilized man; he offered due respect to the French monarch about to be driven from power, and to the monarch’s wife, bowing as he spoke and choosing the appropriate honorifics.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  Louis XVI nodded dully and forced out a thin smile. “General Franck, please sit as you like. The Queen and I only wished to see you again. After all, we met three years ago, did we not?”

  As he spoke, he glanced at his wife, said no more, and returned to the seat behind his great desk, resuming his study of a chess position he had left unfinished. Queen Marie stepped forward instead. She looked André up and down in his general’s uniform and asked, with deliberate provocation, “General Franck, do you find that general’s uniform suits you?”

  The implication was plain: she mocked the youth of André, and his unworthiness to bear a general’s rank.

  At that, André laughed without restraint. “Of course it suits me. I wore this very uniform when I commanded the Army of the North to victory in the great triumph of June—taking Tournai and Mons, capturing a regimental flag from the Austrian royal guard, and very nearly seizing the enemy’s cavalry commander, General Charles of Austria. As I understand it, that young Habsburg prince is your nephew, Your Majesty. How small the world is.”

  Queen Marie remained what she had always been: more beauty than sense. In France, even a fool knew never to trade barbs with a courtroom advocate; it was an invitation to humiliation. And André was not merely a lawyer—he was a lawyer twice over, across two lifetimes. He had always lived by a single rule: show him respect, and he would return it with interest; slight him, and he would offer no pleasant face in reply.

  Hearing the sharp, powder-scented exchange, Louis XVI reluctantly abandoned his chess. He rose, moved to the Queen’s side, and with his clumsy phrasing addressed André.

  “In fact, it is this: we all hope that the Royal Family and the National Assembly may continue to maintain friendly relations with the people. You know that I am a monarch who loves the French people, and I have deeply felt the people’s hardships.”

  The corner of André’s mouth lifted. “If you truly love this country’s people, then publicly issue a condemnation of the Austrian Emperor and the King of Prussia; call upon France’s patriots to resist the Prusso-Austrian Coalition; and declare that any traitor who colludes with foreign intervention forces, once his crime is confirmed, must be put to death at once.”

  “General Franck, you will not speak to the King of France in that tone!” Queen Marie seized her husband’s trembling right hand and rebuked the unruly Jacobin with harsh emphasis.

  André merely shrugged, unmoved. “I am a representative chosen by the nation, fulfilling the sacred duties entrusted to me by the people. And among those duties is the right—according to the will of the majority—to drive incompetent officials from office, even an incapable King. If Your Majesty the Queen doubts it, I can demonstrate it here and now. All I need do is step onto the great terrace and lift my hand, and the two thousand Guards outside—together with countless sans-culottes—will enter the palace.”

  Louis XVI and Queen Marie were plainly shaken by the threat. Their faces took on the weight of a final farewell; they clasped hands so tightly that sweat beaded in their palms. Nor was André’s warning empty. He simply did not wish to do it.

  “You scoundrel! You villain! You are not allowed to bully my father and mother!” Fourteen-year-old Princess Marie-Thérèse sprang to her feet, cheeks puffed with anger, and shouted her warning at the unwelcome General.

  Even in anger, Marie-Thérèse was striking. She had beautiful blue eyes, and she had inherited the beauty of her mother and grandmother alike. Her name, Marie-Thérèse, came from her grandmother: Maria Theresia, the reigning Queen of Hungary and Croatia, revered in Austrian history as a great mother of the realm.

  André tried to force himself not to imagine what awaited Princess Thérèse in the years to come. Yet his wandering gaze fell instead upon the Dauphin, Louis-Charles, who sat on the carpet absorbed in his blocks. The child was wholly indifferent to the adults’ quarrel; he only coughed once or twice from time to time, and with each cough his little cheeks flushed red.

  “A pitiful child as well,” André murmured, looking at the boy with pity.

  André knew the Dauphin had inherited a Habsburg family illness: pulmonary tuberculosis, passed through the male line rather than the female. In an age when medicine was still crude, tuberculosis was nearly always a death sentence. Even without the Revolution’s upheavals, the boy had little chance of reaching adulthood. In another world, Napoleon’s only legitimate son—the King of Rome, born of a Habsburg mother and remembered as Napoleon II—had likewise died of the same hereditary disease.

  Perhaps because she sensed André’s gaze lingering too long, Princess Marie-Thérèse ran over again. She planted herself before the intruder, flung her arms wide, and—like a hen shielding her chicks—bravely blocked what she took for André’s ill intent, shouting at the top of her voice, “No one is taking Charles away! Not allowed!”

  André could not help falling silent. He looked at the girl and asked, half in jest, “If you agree to come with me, then I will not take Charles. How about that?”

  “Where would you take me? To Aunt élisabeth?” Marie-Thérèse’s eyes widened. “She sent me a birthday present last month, from Rotterdam—a set of blocks, the very ones Charles is playing with. I like them very much. But I still want to stay with Father and Mother, and wait for Aunt élisabeth to come home again.” As she finished, she let out a light, girlish laugh.

  Something softened in André. Under the tense gaze of the King and Queen, he drew from his coat a small, unremarkable brooch. He bent down, pinned it to the right side of the girl’s bodice, and instructed her with grave care.

  “If one day you miss Aunt élisabeth, and you are willing to go and see her, then have someone deliver this brooch to Chief Javert. He will grant your wish. Remember: it is a one-way ticket, and it is for you alone.”

  With that, André turned and left without looking back. As he reached the door, he caught, faintly, the King’s and Queen’s voices—half lost, as if at a distance.

  “Thank you. May God bless you.”

  Every Parisian knew that André’s word was dearer than his gold louis. If he said he would deliver Marie-Thérèse, unharmed, to Princess élisabeth, then he would keep that promise.

  From the moment he left the Tuileries to the moment he reached his villa on the ?le Saint-Louis, André did not speak a single word; he kept his eyes closed the whole way. He understood perfectly what trouble that moment of impulse might bring upon himself and upon Javert—among them, a host of political risks.

  Yet he did not regret it. On the contrary, he felt relief that he had still held to the last boundary of a civilized man: that the savage struggle between adults must never be allowed to drag innocent children into its net.

  Because the Dauphin’s status made him far too visible a target, André had no confidence at all—and even if he saved the boy, the boy would not live long. Rescuing the Princess, however, posed far fewer obstacles. After all, in a monarchy that had endured for more than a thousand years, France had never had a female King. Whoever rose to power among the Jacobins would not, as a matter of policy, single her out for persecution—though Paris’s lawless mob might be another matter.

  André had another reason for moving first: a request from Princess élisabeth. Within a single month she had written three letters, all conveyed to André through the Military Intelligence Office. In them, élisabeth begged him with desperation to leave her brother and sister-in-law some remnant of bloodline—if only one child. The Bourbon princess knew that Paris’s Jacobins would never spare the King and Queen, nor even the young Dauphin.